Russell Brunson’s Funnel University Review

by | Oct 7, 2019

What Is “Funnel University”?

Funnel University is a course by Russell Brunson that teaches entrepreneurs how to utilize click funnels in order to generate traffic, revenue, and leads. Brunson walks you through every step from creation, optimization, and conversion. This course is designed to be the one stop for anything that has to do with click funnels.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University
Funnel University, by Russell Brunson, teaches students the ins and outs of click funnel systems.

Who Is Russell Brunson?

Russell Brunson is a successful entrepreneur who started during the dot com boom. Instead of being inside of silicon valley though, Brunson started his business in Boise, Idaho. Russell started his new business with a boom, collecting over 1 million people into his list using copywriting, lead generation, and, you guessed it, click funnels. Brunson started click funnels before they were even widely known as such.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University - Russell Brunson
Russell Brunson, creator of Funnel University as well as the company Click Funnels.

Brunson’s main source of success comes from his talent with analytics and advertisements. In his book “Dot Com Secrets”, Brunson explains that he reverse engineered advertisements purely based on the infomercials he saw at night and the mail inside of his spam folder. His start came after his ISP (internet service provider) cut off his internet for sending a mass amount of emails for his first venture, a short booklet that taught people how to make money. It wasn’t until after he checked his email in a local library did he find that he was successful.

Funnel University Pricing

Funnel University comes with two pricing options: $67 per month, or a one time charge of $597 per year. Both pricing points charge $19.95 for shipping. The course is only available once a year. The shipping charge is quite obviously one of many “free” products that put the price of the product inside of the shipping cost. In reality, the benefits only cost $5 to ship, but Brunson charges $15 for them, but spins it as “It’s free, just pay $19.95 for shipping”. Don’t be fooled.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University Pricing
Funnel University offers a one time fee, or a monthly charge.

Both pricing options come with the following bonuses

  • Funnel University Newsletter- This exclusive newsletter is valued at “$9,997” by Brunson, of which he’s giving to you for free. How generous! Jokes aside, this is just a printed magazine subscription filled with recycled tutorials, tips, and articles. In terms of bonuses, Funnel University is one of the few that include a physical magazine subscription.
  • Funnel Stacking Book- Brunson’s funnel book. Nothing that you’re not gonna cover inside of the course.
  • Funnel-U Black Card- A flashdrive of the course you’re gonna get.
  • Labs Software Suite- Brunson’s personal software suite that comes with various programs. These are all super basic things like “Survey generator”, “Webinar Chat App”, and our favorite, “Image Video Generator”. These are essentially wordpress plugins if they were made in 2010.
  • CF Pro Tools Software Suite- This is a software package that allows the customer to smoothly go through the click funnel process. It includes a lot of basic stuff, like a promo botton (wow), a best seller highlight, and a promo timer. Again, all stuff that’s basically a free wordpress plugin.
Russell Brunson's Funnel University Black Card
The Black Card, an SD card version of the course, cost $19.95 to ship out.

So yeah, there’s not exactly a plethora of benefits. 

Brunson also offers a refund on the following terms:

1. You must request a refund in writing by contacting support@clickfunnels.com

2. Your request for a refund must be made within thirty (30) days of your purchase

3. You must return the hard goods to ClickFunnels immediately, according to the shipping and other instructions you will receive by email after requesting a refund

4. The hard goods must be returned to ClickFunnels in like-new, or re-sellable condition, as determined in ClickFunnels’ sole, reasonable discretion

*Taken from section 6 of Etison LLC’s website “ClickFunnels.com” terms of service.

Funnel University’s Curriculum

Funnel University’s core is mainly focused on the different funnel structures. Funnel University itself is a hub of much content, but for this review we’re gonna focus on the real value of this course, which are the funnel structures and tips.

Brunson goes over the various funnel structures, and which one to apply to your business. For example, someone selling beauty products should focus more on the free bonuses than a service or software. While Brunson recommends to use all of the strategies for your funnel, you have to understand which one to emphasize in order to maximize your conversion rate.

Funnel 1: Self-Liquidating Content

For this funnel, Brunson talks about what he calls, “The Self Made Man”.  He constantly re-emphasises the importance of building your own personal brand, whether it be through podcasts, blog, or YouTube channel. He goes on to explain that by captivating an audience, it’s easier to create landing pages that are geared specifically toward your audience, as well as providing a free source of traffic. It’s very similar to what he does right now, branding himself as an expert digital marketer, creating small but free content to build an audience, then sell them on his click funnel course. This could be the very same reason that you are thinking of taking this course…

Russell Brunson's Funnel University Funnel 1
Funnel 1 shows you how to narrow down a large audience into buyers.

However, something like this takes time and patience. Building an audience isn’t something that can be done within a day. Brunson explains that this method is a lot more stable and profitable than any other method. Branding yourself allows you to make money off of advertisements as well as a jumping point for free traffic. 

Brunson reviews various strategies to successful. Here’s the gist of it:

  • Pick a niche you are passionate about- Avoid burnout and demonstrate natural passion for the niche you are in and the content you are producing.
  • Adapt your content- Get feedback from your audience and create content that they demand. Learn what type of content gets traffic, and what types don’t.
  • Get controversial- Give your honest opinions, then have a scholarly discussion about it. This creates a buzz that will get your channel talked about.

This type of funnel is the most cost effective, but not the fastest.

Funnel 2: The “Invisible” Funnel

One of Brunson’s other main points was the utilization of a prepay method. Following this strategy, users have the option to pay ahead of time before they use your product. While to most it would seem strange, Brunson claims that a strong product that offers a prepayment will see higher conversion rates, stating, “What was interesting, is that between 70% and 80% of people took the prepay option…”.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University Conversion Rate
Brunson’s infographic explaining an 18% conversion rate based off of a properly implemented prepayment option.

Overall, the “invisible funnel” is structured in three main steps:

  1. Sales Page- Creating a catching offer that creates demand for your product/service.
  2. The Upsell- Maximizing your profits by adding in additional sales opportunities.
  3. Members Area- Make their purchase feel validated by providing an exclusive member’s area.

Brunson gives some advice with these funnels:

  1. Post clear billing rules (make it transparent).
  2. Make upsells simple.
  3. Offer different packages.

Funnel 3- Garret White’s Funnel

Garrett White was a previous Brunson student who claims to have made $500k just using Brunson’s strategies, who then went on to create his own funnel structure. Take that with a grain of salt, because the author of this story is Brunson himself. This type of funnel uses one distinct strategy, pushing people out. White’s philosophy is that the more people you push out that aren’t going to buy, the more you can focus on your core customers. Things like requiring a pre purchase (usually a small amount) will weed out anyone who doesn’t have money or doesn’t want to buy. 

Savage? Yes.

‚ Effective? That’s for you to decide.

This funnel is structured in the following way:

  1. Landing Page- Your pitch. How does this benefit  your customer?
  2. Documentary- Provide a few pieces of content as well as an extended testimonial that proves your worth.
  3. Warrior Week- Warrior week was White’s four day process in which he provided an audience with immense value over the course of four days. At the end, he average six out of eight people signing up for his $50,000 program.
Russell Brunson's Funnel University Documentary
Russell Brunson uses this timestamp as an example for your “documentary”.

Here’s some tips if you decide to use this method:

  1. In your documentary, provide catchy timestamps like (17:52- The Million Dollar Question) so that your audience has something to look forward to and keep their attention.
  2. “Warrior Week” isn’t necessarily a template, it’s more of an idea. What type of event that spans across at least two days can you offer your audience? Getting them to buy muli-thousand dollar courses are much easier if you provide them with this experience.
  3. Always offer higher tier packages. A $5,000 course has the ability to turn into a $15,000, or a $50,000 course if you get lucky enough. Don’t sell yourself short.
Russell Brunson's Funnel University Warrior Week
The basic timeline for any Warrior Week funnel.

Funnel 4- Continuity Funnel

This type of funnel uses a membership. Think of it like a Netflix or Hulu membership, where instead of a one-time charge, you pay monthly for access of all of the content inside of the hub. Brunson explains that in his opinion, the main problem with this is that, “…you tell people they’re going to get a whole bunch of stuff for joining, that’s cool, but it doesn’t answer their need. Usually they need one specific thing”. And yet, he uses the same model for this course. It’s a broad generalization, but essentially, it’s meant for high volume, low stakes. Your job with this funnel is quantity over quality.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University Landing Pages
This infographic explains how multiple landing pages can be utilized simultaneously with one course.

This is structured in the following manner:

  1. The Sales Page- The beauty of this funnel is that it can create multiple sales pages for each type of content. Let’s say you have a hub for film courses. With this model, you can create a sales page for animation, film analysis, lighting, etc. Each page can target it’s own demographic. You can compare the opt-ins and conversion rate for each sales page, then utilize these metrics in order to adapt your marketing to the sales page that works. This idea is 90% of the value of this course.
  2. Continuity Upsell- Like most of the funnels on here, Brunson explains that you should always upsell, and in this case offer multiple types of memberships.
  3. High Ticket Upsell- Once again, upsell. Offer a course at a “special” pricing for members only. Make this a more advanced course. Brunson says that the “high-ticket” upsells is what really creates profit.

The best tip for this funnel is already stated: make different sales page for different demographics. These analytics can really give you amazing insight to the best way to make profit.

Brunson’s Course Quality

The course does have adequate video quality. The editing is nice, and the camera quality isn’t too bad. Brunson uses a variety of methods, from talking straight into the camera, to using‚  screen recordings, and writing on whiteboard. However, our only concern is that the course just feels outdated. Most of these videos were made in 2016, even earlier. While the quality was good for the time, it just feels outdated and old. 

The PDFs and workbooks are high quality, however. It’s not just a text document, it’s formatted with infographics and relevant examples. The design on it is quite sleek as well. It seems as though the workbooks aged better than the video content did.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University Quality
Funnel University has good editing, but low video quality; as most of them were made years prior.

Does Russell Brunson Deliver?

Brunson over promises with this course, making exaggerated claims and skewed testimonials like “doubling your sales” or getting “3 to 5 times more customers”. He overhypes his course and makes people believe that they will see explosive results. Let’s make one thing clear, if you use just what Brunson told you, you won’t see any difference in sales. The main thing that’s going to contribute to your sales funnel is the amount of people you put in, and the strength of your product. Brunson doesn’t show you how to get a better product, he shows you how to better sell what you already are selling. So, if your product isn’t selling, don’t expect this course to fix that. In this sense, Brunson fails to deliver on his claim of doubling your sales.

That being said, if you already have an existing sales funnel that is somewhat successful, Brunson teaches you how to tweak and fix your funnel to maximize conversions. In this sense, Brunson does deliver various helpful methods to increase your opt-ins and profit. It all depends on why you’re taking this course, and what you plan to do with the information presented.

Who Is Funnel University Best For?

Brunson’s course is littered with upsells. One of Brunson’s reiterated points is to include upsells yourself, so it’s not shocking that he does this himself. This course won’t provide much value to any advanced entrepreneur looking to increase their skills. Brunson leaves out any advanced or highly specific training into his separate upsells. So, if you’re looking for a more in-depth and knowledgeable course, this isn’t it. This is the product you have to buy in order to even buy his expensive training.

Russell Brunson's Funnel University User Interface
An inside look into the user interface of the membership area.

However, if you’re a brand new entrepreneur looking to set up your first click funnel, this course is highly valuable. It covers a lot of ground about click funnels and even provides some resources to get your feet moving.

Is Funnel University Worth The Money?

At $67 per month, the course isn’t overly expensive. If you try to knock out all of the information within a month, any beginner can get immense value from this. However, anyone looking to get advanced information about clickfunnels will find this course lackluster at best. 

So, how much do you know about click funnels? If you know nothing, then yes, this course provides a lot of value for it’s cost. If not, then no, this course doesn’t delve into any detail.

Funnel University Alternatives

Product Launch Formula- Jeff Walker creates this course as a way to create demand before your product even launches. This is a great way to validate any niche before you go into it. This course goes over the psychological tricks that Brunson talks about, as well as the overall structure of click funnels.

Landing Page Optimization– This Udemy course is best for anyone who already has click funnels in place and is just looking to increase their optimization. The course delves into various strategies to keep your PPC costs low and your conversions up.

Our Final Verdict

Funnel University by Russell Brunson is a great stepping stone for beginners to learn click funnels. It’s low price and extensive content provide beginners with a great option to step into digital entrepreneurship. However, the course lacks detail and contains too many upsells for any advanced marketer to find value in it’s price.

Pros

  • Simple & straightforward.
  • Easily Graspable.
  • Relatively cheap compared to other courses.
  • Many benefits included with a membership.

Cons

  • Doesn’t attack any advanced strategies or solutions.
  • Hides valuable content behind upsells.
  • Course quality is outdated.

Andrew Green

Andrew is a successful entrepreneur and lifelong learner. Throughout his career, he has watched hundreds of online courses that have allowed him to achieve success in highly competitive fields such as online marketing, investing, and sales. Andrew is committed to expanding his knowledge and expertise and he reviews the premium courses he watches on his online blog.
Overall Rating: 3.28 out of 5

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